


They said," You can't withstand the storm". Oh darling, I am the fucking storm

by orphan_account



Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [1]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Nazis, Other, Politics, Religion, Religious Content, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slytherin Politics, Slytherins Being Slytherins, Tom Riddle-centric, Wizarding Wars (Harry Potter), World War II, haha - Freeform, mostly - Freeform, pre-horcrux tom, slight AU, wool's got bombed because i needed something for character development
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 15:48:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26790118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There is only power, and those too weak to seek it || Tom Marvolo Riddle is magic, not the devil's spawn, his magic cannot be exorcised from him, fuck you Father John || Outrunning death is Tom's favourite hobby
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore & Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Series: once upon a time i liked black, but now all i see is gold, blood and the dead [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1953565
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	They said," You can't withstand the storm". Oh darling, I am the fucking storm

1: say the lord's prayer

Tom Riddle was running.

Running, like a coward.

The soldiers, the dying men whispered, they are coming pretty boy, they are coming.

They had dropped bombs on London a few days ago. Tom had only dared to come out now. Radiation would have killed him if he came out too early.

"If only the purebloods could see me now," Tom murmured mutinously, scrambling over debris and rubble as he climbed into the small crater in the middle of the streets.

Soft scuffling caught his attention.

Tom stiffens, hand moving to flick out his wand attached to his forearm.

It's just a muggle.

Another one, injured and wheezing. Blood loss would get him soon, if infection or dehydration did not.

"Please, God, I beg you, do not forsake me," the muggle was pleading, coughing, laying there broken.

"Young lad, save me, please, I have a son, my boy, oh my boy, my sweet darling child," the muggle whispers, rocking back and forth slightly.

Tom pursed his lips and moved on.

"The Lord will save us, the lord will liberate us, trust in the Lord for he will not let thee suffer," the muggle continued praying.

Tom ignored him and calmly crawled out of the crater.

He himself with the noble blood of Slytherin would protect him.

2: our father, who art in heaven

Tom Riddle returned to Hogwarts for his fifth year.

He is a whirlwind of charm and studious-ness once again.

It was honestly a relief, to be back in the familiar walls of Hogwarts, to have a semblance of protection against the muggles. Against Hitler. Against Grindelwald.

"Let us sing the school song! All rise!" Dumb-as-a-door proclaims.

The entirety of Slytherin and half of Ravenclaw remain seated.

Then, quite inexplicably, something happens.

"How dare you!" She screams from Ravenclaw.

Tom's eyes narrow on her. Little Myrtle Warren, a third year. Muggleborn.

"You sit there while people are out there dying! While Grindelwald is killing masses, while Germany is enslaving people and creating thousands of concentration camps! How dare you pretend nothing is wrong?" She hollers.

The hall falls silent.

Tom mentally applauds the girl for her foolishness and her truths.

"Rest assured, Ms Warren, you will be safe here," Headmaster Dippet says.

"What about everyone else not here?" A small voice from Hufflepuff says.

Oh, this was such gold.

"They're dropping bombs on us, Headmaster. They can kill us in milliseconds. But it's better to be dead than captured," someone from Gryffindor pipes up.

Tom stays silent. He was not part of this resistance move, no matter how much he supported it.

Weakness would not be tolerated.

They were like God and his angels who lounged in heaven while the world was up in flames.

"As long as you are at Hogwarts, nothing will happen to you," Headmaster Dippet firmly says.

The muggleborn and the muggle-raised are significantly quiet after that.

For the first time in history, the first day of school is silent and pensive.

3: hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven

"Mister Riddle, a word," Dumbledore pleasantly says, yet the glint in his eyes is malicious.

"Of course, Professor," Tom answers, nodding to let Black and Rosier leave first.

The door closes.

"Now Mister Riddle, I'd like to warn you that protests in Hogwarts are very much breaking the rules," Dumbledore begins.

"With all due respect sir," Tom interjects," I had nothing to do with the recent… uprisings."

Uprisings did not even cover it. The Hufflepuffs were refusing to sit together with the staff in the Great Hall, out of loyalty for their fellow Muggleborn Hufflepuffs. The Ravenclaws were furiously tearing into books about Muggle History, Muggle Science, the war etc. The Gryffindors were also showing displeasure, but believed that their Head of House would do something about it (he wouldn't). The Slytherins, well, they were still under Malfoy's reign. No matter, Malfoy was in his last year. The sixth years were under his rule too, along with the fifth and second. He would rule soon.

"Ah, my boy, you shouldn't withhold the truth," Dumbledore has the nerve to chide, eyes twinkling in mock disappointment.

"Forgive me father for I have sinned," Tom deadpanned.

Dumbledore blinks.

"Father?"

Tom sighs.

"It is exactly that attitude that makes these uprisings occur. The purebloods, they do not try to welcome the Muggleborn, they only try to force their ways onto them. They expect, yet they do not give. It is as if they think they have an instant cultural reset the moment they step foot into the Wizarding World. Such blindness leads to disrest, disrest causes revolutions, revolutions causes chaos."

Dumbledore nods, almost sage-like and patiently.

Tom wanted to curse him but refrained from doing so.

"So they want to be included and want to be welcomed," Dumbledore murmurs.

"Sir?"

Dumbledore snaps out of whatever epiphany he had.

"Good day Mister Riddle, do run along or you will be late."

Curse Dumbledore to hold him back but not give him a permission slip.

4: give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

Tom stares. And stares.

He did not mean for this to happen.

Young Myrtle Warren, dead, because of his foolishness, because of his carelessness.

"Jörmungandr, go back to the Chamber," Tom hisses.

The basilisk has the nerve to hiss a few choice expletives at him, staring at him sulkily before retreating into the depths of the Chamber.

He really had a damn attitude problem.

Tom contemplates. He has at least five minutes, at most three hours to fix this.

Tom lays a hand on Myrtle's cold, pale forehead.

She had served her purpose, but he wondered?

Tom fingers the creased corners of his diary, a book filled with his hatred and hope, his war times and hardships.

"You are forgiven, Myrtle Warren, go seek the land of the holy." Tom tells the cooling corpse.

Later, when Dumbledore calls him to Headmaster Dippet's office in pretence of asking him to protect the students on top of his prefect duties, Dumbledore lets him see Myrtle's body one last time.

"We therefore commit this body to the ground," Tom begins abruptly, ignoring Dippet's confused look and Dumbledore's suspicious one," earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in sure and certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life."

Tom ends his short prayer with a whispered "amen".

He doesn't know who looks more unsettled, himself for his sudden actions or the staff members present.

5: as we forgive those who trespass against us

"We know what you did Riddle," Lestrange hisses.

Tom steps into the common room. Full attendance.

"And what, exactly, did I do?"

"You killed that mudblood. You threw the entirety of Slytherin to the wolves!"

Tom raises and eyebrow and looks directly at Malfoy, sitting on the best armchair of the common room like a throne.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, Heir of Slytherin, darkness reincarnate and the devil's spawn would not bow to him.

"I invoke the right of challenge for a reshuffle," Tom declares quietly, but it is enough for the room to fall even more impossibly silent than before.

"You dare-" Malfoy snarls.

"You sit in my seat, you wear my crown. I want it back now," Tom calmly demands, twirling his wand.

"I accept your challenge, mudblood," Malfoy spits out.

Tom smiles.

"May God have mercy on your soul," Tom very seriously informs Abraxas Pollux Malfoy, and they duel.

After, some claim that it is terrifying, others claim that it was glorious.

Tom Riddle, first mudblood of Slytherin, stands victorious within the wreckage, blood splattering his usually pristine robes and smearing his face with a cruel, vicious red.

Malfoy groans softly against the wall he was launched into. Repeatedly.

"Get up," Tom says.

Malfoy glares at him.

"Get your arse off the ground, Malfoy. You will be my eyes and my ears along with Alphard," Tom demands, eyes gleaming.

Malfoy loses his pureblood composure and gapes.

"I lost," Malfoy states.

Tom shoots him a sharp look.

"Your death would be a waste of a good fighter and traditionalist. I am merciful, I am what the world needs. And you, dear Malfoy, will be with me and you will aid me when the time comes."

Without waiting for him to reply, Tom nods at Evan Rosier and Miranda Flint to get Malfoy to the hospital wing.

Malfoy purses his lips, but bows in acceptance.

Tom Riddle won the allegiance of the house of Slytherin and by default their bloodlines that night.

6: and lead us not into temptation

Tom Riddle sits in the Great Hall as students file out, all chattering and happy to go back home, away from school.

Tom is left alone in the hall.

"Mister Riddle," someone says.

Tom turns around.

"Ah, Professor Dumbledore," Tom greets pleasantly, glad to see the familiar spike of suspicion in those twinkling eyes.

"Mister Riddle, the train will be coming soon, do go pack up."

"I'm not packing up, Sir," Tom says cheerfully.

"And why not?"

"The Nazis might come for me, sir, I'm not going to go back to them when Hogwarts is, quote, the safest place in Magical Britain."

"It is against the school rules to do so, Mister Riddle."

Tom's gaze hardens.

"Albus is quite right, Mister Riddle," Headmaster Dippet says.

"My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, a mudblood name. I have nothing in the muggle world. Two years ago my orphanage was bombed and collapsed into mere debris. I have been on the run ever since I was turning 13. You talk about nobility and chivalry, when there are people suffering and you sit by idly, twiddling your thumbs."

"I have seen many things, Headmaster. I have seen Lord Grindelwald's Acolytes up close, I have seen a woman eat her child for food. I have seen a man get crushed to death by a building. I have seen people bleed out to death from bullets. I once watched prisoners get marched to a nearby concentration camp. They were subdued, they were broken, they were not whole."

"You send me back every year, but you do not even know anything beyond the mere concept of war. Your childhood shenanigans are over, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, over, do you hear me?"

Dumbledore looked shaken to the core, pale and old.

"I said, do you hear me! Grindelwald is no longer your old friend! Grindelwald is a tyrant, he advocates for freedom but goes about creating more laws and repression! He is the key to these wars, there is always a monster at play, because there is always a shining knight to come defeat it. Where is your bravery, Albus Dumbledore? Where is your drive to better wizardkind? Where is your determination to overcome whatever unbreakable vow or whatnot he probably made you swear when you were still allies?"

"Mister Riddle," Headmaster Dippet weakly says.

"I am done with the hypocrisy of the wizarding world. I am done with the stigma and the ignorance. Muggles are not pets that can be easily wowed with acts of magic. They are fearful, they are mistrustful, they are human. This war will not end with victory, it will end in bloodshed, and someone willing to step up," Tom finishes softly.

He notes the slack face of Dumbledore, the shocked faces of the staff, the not-so-secretly eavesdropping students behind the doors.

He knows he has won this time.

7: but deliver us from evil, amen

Tom Riddle watches Albus Dumbledore face off Grindelwald.

(Sue him, he had sneaked along with the staff and half of the purebloods to watch)

"You cannot, will not harm me, Albus!" Grindelwald cackles.

Tom scrunches his nose in distaste. Cliché villain monologue 101 much?

"I know, Gellert," Dumbledore replies, both old and weary.

Grindelwald grins manically. Tom sees the slight tremble in his step, the restraint.

"Oh Al," Grindelwald sighs," how far the mighty has fallen."

Dumbledore gives a sad smile of his own, the first genuine smile Tom's seen on his blasted face.

"Your dreams are consumed in darkness and poison, Gell. Surrender, and repent for your actions."

Tom winces. Wrong word choice.

Grindelwald's face darkens.

"Repent?' He hisses.

"Repent, for carrying out the plans we laid out over decades? For what, casting the curse? For being there for you? For not giving up on you? You are a pathetic man, Albus. You kid yourself in your light glory, when once upon a time we were dreaming about ruining the world. I would have destroyed the world for you, Albus Dumbledore."

"I know," Albus replies softly, near silently.

They stare at each other for a few seconds, like a last goodbye, and they duel.

Only Tom notices how their hands twitch towards each other before they move.

Epilogue: in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen

Tom Riddle is not a monster. He is a wizard, he is a dark lord, he is a liberator and a freer, he is a mediator and a killer.

Tom has bathed in blood and washed his hands in sorrow. He has brought a light lord to his knees, a dark lord to his demise.

Tom Marvolo Riddle is a mudblood, but his power was given by the lord and grown by himself.

Power is not given freely, it is earned.


End file.
